New Orleans City Council poised to move up curfew for young people in French Quarter

Despite a swirl of controversy and charges of racism at a public hearing Wednesday, the New Orleans City Council appears likely today to pass an ordinance strengthening a juvenile curfew in the French Quarter. The proposal by Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer would set an 8 p.m. curfew on Friday and Saturday nights for anyone 16 or younger in the Quarter and the section of Faubourg Marigny containing the Frenchmen Street entertainment district.

View full sizeGerald Herbert, The Associated Press archiveNew Life Brass Band members Revert Andrews, 15, center, and Revon Andrews, 13, perform near the Cafe Du Monde in the French Quarter on Nov. 22.

New Orleans has had a citywide curfew for minors since June 1994. It requires all those 16 and younger to be off the streets by 8 p.m. -- or 9 p.m. during the summer -- on Sunday through Thursday and by 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Violators are taken to a holding center until they are picked up by a parent.

The law allows several exceptions, including for minors who are accompanied by a custodian; "on a reasonable errand"; going to or from work; "involved in an emergency"; on the sidewalk in front of their home or that of a next-door neighbor; attending official school, religious or other recreational activities; or "exercising First Amendment rights ... such as the free exercise of religion, freedom of speech and the right of assembly."

Palmer's ordinance would set the curfew at 8 p.m. for the entire week in the area bounded by Canal Street, North Rampart Street, Elysian Fields Avenue and the Mississippi River. It would include both sides of Canal, Rampart and Elysian Fields.

She said Wednesday she is trying to protect young people in an adult-oriented section of the city with a heavy concentration of bars and other alcoholic beverage outlets, and several French Quarter business and residential organizations endorsed her proposal.

Jeremy DeBlieux, vice president of the French Quarter Business Association, cited a need to change the Quarter's image as "a place where the rules don't apply and the streets are unsafe."

Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas said there were at least 236 violent crimes after 8 p.m. last year in the affected area, with 60 of those involving the arrest of a juvenile. He said the department would be able to enforce the earlier hour without harming its overall crime-fighting efforts.

Unchanged elsewhere

The weekend curfew would remain at 11 p.m. in the rest of the city, however, and that discrepancy led to criticism from several speakers at a meeting of the council's Criminal Justice Committee.

Only a handful of speakers opposed the idea of extending the curfew, but many called for making the change citywide. Some accused the council of caring more about tourists and white-owned businesses in the French Quarter than residents of the predominantly black neighborhoods where most of the city's 199 murders in 2011 occurred.

Palmer introduced her proposal in late 2011, shortly after several high-profile crimes involving young people in and near the Quarter, including fatal shootings Halloween night on Canal and Bourbon streets.

Evelyn Baudoin-Glasper said the council should worry about local children first and then about tourists. "Focus on the whole city," she said.

Edward Parker said Las Vegas does not have a different curfew for its famed Strip than for the rest of the city, and New Orleans should not have different rules for different neighborhoods. "The walls continue to grow higher and thicker between the white and the black communities," he warned.

Norris Henderson said setting an earlier curfew in the Quarter will simply drive young people into other neighborhoods.

But others complained that police officers do little to enforce the present curfew in many neighborhoods, and many appeared to agree with Frank Isom that the council was "putting a Band-Aid on a shotgun wound to the head." They said the city's young people need more job training opportunities, mental health counseling and recreational programs.

'Crawl before we walk'

Palmer and council President Jackie Clarkson said they would favor making the change citywide, but Clarkson said it is better to "start small" and then expand the area where the earlier hour applies. "We have to crawl before we walk," she said.

Even if council members wanted to expand the change today to include the entire city, that probably would be ruled illegal because Palmer's proposed ordinance applies only to the Quarter and part of Marigny. A new ordinance to make the change apply citywide would have to be introduced and publicly advertised.

Nadra Enzi, an activist who calls himself "Capt. Black" and who founded a group called Good Citizens Supporting Good Cops, suggested that Palmer's ordinance itself is illegal because it would not apply to the entire city and therefore would have a "disparate impact" on black and white residents.

Although Wednesday's meeting was called only to discuss Palmer's curfew ordinance, many activists showed up, apparently thinking it would deal with Serpas' overall crime-fighting strategy. Clarkson had several ejected from the chamber for interrupting other speakers or heckling the council.

Besides supporting a move to make the earlier curfew hour apply citywide, Clarkson said she plans soon to introduce measures to crack down on bars that serve underage patrons.